The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-08-06

perhaps $5,0o0 a year; and avm it and handed 1t over to his wife and | family.
 saw him toward the last of his days appearing In the New York ho- tells, a rather lonely man whom hard work had somewhat deprived of his power to be quaint and original. He sand @ mo tha' he wished .,e had kept tho funny papers he had written In his youth and got nothing for them. Said he; livery ono of them is worth $loo now. but can't mako them as could then"
 This man, unoer n better organized society, would have bcen taken out of the mcre cirrus business of life and put to nse and have given more pleas ure and his collected works would have somo unity about them.
 Another of our humorists was sam Small, who Is now a revival orator He Is man of good sense and of good appearance; and when 1 knew him first he was slender and finely formed and would we'll become a suit of mll dress.
 He had been for while sccntary to Andrew Johnson. and had s.mc genius for public life. But his habits wcre irregular, and there was no steady oc- oupation for him but on the nowspa- per press. fie conlmc.ce'' the ne gro dialect rrticles which were attorward taken up hy young man In the same office with him, Mir Harris. Smatls articles were short, pungent and odd, When he failed to furnish them, a modest young man at one of the neigh bring desks was asked to con- time them, This man possessed all. other quality very essential to real humorist and yet not much employed by ours. He had pathos; he was al- SO an inqulstivo student oi tho sim plcst natures In men or things He therefore, having something outside of tho tinc- killing world to inspire him, has survived and continues to glvc delight. But it Is noticed that ho hardly over goes among crowds or accepts invitations to make speeches at dinners.
 The dcvouring crowd that wants to handle It's author and humorist Al. ways reminds me of the boors who came into fine parlors and want to break piece of the bric-a- binc in order to sec what It k made ot.
 Nearly every man with fine heul- ties In hIm for literary work is vul- garixcd and broken by common con. taets.
 Mir. Small had nn unhappy descent into poverty and distress. He found his way out ny becoming an eNhorter on religious matters, n singular con clusion for n man who could make people smile and he happy.
 This humor of the Americans k very distinct thing from the wit In the English there was little wit In Shakespeare in the sense of sharp, pithy sayings, hut he has hunor so nicely and broadly diflused that you hardly know where the linc divides IL from the rest of his composition. Fdisfa0 does not make many points; he Is hu- morous In quantities and in general, and he hns lasted 800 years.
 Mark Twain lns humor, and, bri- ter than thnt, dramatic descriptive power his humor k often fierce and ardonic, but told with smile which gives lt to some m aspect of merri- ment The basis of his humor ia In the irrcvcrencc of our new, fresh peo- pie for whatever Is conservative and settled. TO make n jest of Adam suits A part of our age, but he who made jest of Noah was cursed in his child. ren's children. Mark Twain proha. bly had beneath the surface the gen cral money making Instinct of the Amcricans--and as he has gone for ward in this occupation, he reminds one of Billy Burton, the comedian and manager, who became rich, and still 'nadc people laugh who saw him be- fore the footlights, while in reality he was hard creditor, and good deal of merchant, even in his humor. He had his name put to fl cycl0pcdia of wit and hum0r, most of the work of which was done by plain hirclings. The humor which lasts long while is founded upon something universal in human nature and not upon the mere temper CT the day.
 The most scientific of our humorists whose humor was that of an educated man and trained one. was Lieutcn- ant Derby, of the regular army, whose writing name was John Phenix. He had been with the regular troops in California and at all the distant posts, and wrote his humor for his fellow officers and for the incidental society which assembled around the barracks. It was his intimate knowledge Of all the techDicaIity of the service, of the jokes of the mess, of the personality of the officers and of the odd and pion- eer condition of things at that time which caused him to become the won